Raiders open with win at WW-PS
By: Bob Nuse
With a good number of players returning from the team that won the Mercer County Tournament championship a year ago, Hun School boys’ soccer coach Chris Kingston wasn’t sure if the momentum from last year would carry over.
”You would think it would carry over and in theory it should carry over,” said Kingston, whose team opened its season with a 3-1 win at West Windsor-Plainsboro South on Saturday. “And I think it does. But every year is a completely new team. One thing that is different is the difference in mentality going into the year. Last year, we were coming off a decent season, eager to see where we were and not really with any sense of what we were.
”The whole mentality is different this year. It’s not necessarily bad if you don’t lose that hunger. I think there is some carry over and it showed today. Guys like Campbell Stevenson and Tucker Barth and Mike Azzara, they really stepped up and played great today in the back. And we have three freshmen who played well today that we needed.”
Hun started the game without two of its key players, Jelani Rooks and Thomas Nicholas, in the lineup. The Raiders then lost Ryan Kreger to a knee injury in the opening minutes. That meant the rest of the team had to pick up some of the slack.
”I thought it was a step for us in the right direction,” said senior Matt Florio, who scored one Hun goal while post-graduate John Gianis added the other two. “I thought we played well and the defense stepped up. We were missing Jelani and Tom, but I think that made us come together more as a team. Everyone had to step up a little more because those guys were out.
”We have a lot of returning guys. I don’t think we’re there yet, but I think we’ll get there by the end of the season.”
Hun led just 1-0 at the half, then got two goals by midway through the second half to open up a 3-0 lead. Tommy Carroll scored the lone goal of the game for the Pirates. For Kingston, being able to open with a win against a quality opponent while not being at full strength was a nice way to open the season.
”We were missing two guys, and then (Kreger) goes down,” Kingston lamented. “He was the one guy I was counting on to hold down the fort. He’s so valuable to the team and so is Thomas. They were our two center backs last year. But these other guys stepped up and that’s what a team is all about.”
If the Raiders can hold the fort until the injured return, they could be as formidable a team as they were when they won the MCT a year ago.
”Once Jelani gets back, we have John, Jelani, myself, plus our outside backs can score,” said Florio, a Montgomery resident in his third full season with the Raiders. “Everyone on our team is pretty much a weapon. We have a lot of guys who can do good things.
”We came together at the end and made that run through the county and we made it to the state finals. We hope to do the same thing this year. We return seven or eight starters and three or four kids who didn’t play as much last year, but are able to step in this year.”
The loss was the first of the season for the Pirates, who had posted a 9-0 win over Robbinsville a day earlier.
”I don’t think (Friday) helped us with today,” said South coach Brian Welsh, whose team slipped to 2-1 on the season. “We played on a grass field. And we need time to adjust to this (new turf field). We need time to adjust and adapt our style of play to the advantages we get from this field.”
The Pirates, who tied Hun, 3-3, when the teams met last year, have a number of new players in key positions and are simply looking to improve each time they take the field.
”For the second year in a row, I think we both got something out of this,” Welsh said. “It was our third game and their first. We just have to build on this game. I really believe we’re a work in progress. I’d be really concerned if this was the middle of October and not the second week in September. That’s what a season is. It’s a journey and you need to evolve. It’s not where you are now, it’s where you are at the end.”
Both the Pirates and Raiders figure to be in a good place by the end of the season.

